


A Couple of Wayward Kids

by ReformedTsundere



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Abuse Disguised as Parenting, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Dysfunctional Family Themes, F/M, Ignores Canon past the first bit of S13 E23, Jack runs away again, These kids have problems, and the solution is to run from them, cause they're kids ya know, road trip fic, tags added as chapters progress
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-10
Updated: 2019-01-09
Packaged: 2019-10-07 13:36:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17366840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ReformedTsundere/pseuds/ReformedTsundere
Summary: Sometimes. Just sometimes. Fate dips it’s hand into the world and sets two kids, running away from their homes, their family, their mistakes, barreling right into one another. Jack can’t handle the fact he’s caused the people he loves pain again, and Riley… well, she’s got her own demons to leave behind.





	A Couple of Wayward Kids

**Author's Note:**

> This series will completely ignore canon after the first half of S13 E23. Though it’ll get into it in later chapters - Dean never says yes. Jack still loses his grace. Lucifer still dies and Michele is in the wind.
> 
> Disclaimer. This fic will not exceed it’s T rating. While warnings will change due to a difference in violence and potential triggers there will be no sexually explicit content.
> 
> I went with an OC rather than a Reader because I felt like it fit the story more especially with the backstory she has. I do try to keep it as ambiguous as possible. I think the only things you'll ever know is that she identifies as female and she has brown eyes. I'll do my very best to keep it as open as possible though.

It hurts.

Everything hurts.

His father. That  _monster_ had betrayed them.  _Him._

And he'd let him. He'd ignored what everyone was saying and now they were suffering for it.

Yes. Lucifer was dead.

But at what cost?

Sam hurt. Dean hurt. Castiel  _hurt_.

Michael is  _gone_. No trail to track. No place to start.

And it all falls on to him. Jack. Now with no power left to even try and fix his mistakes.

The others don't say anything to him outright while he's nursing his wounds and walking around, weak and still thoroughly shocked about the events not even twenty-four hours fresh. The shock is still a heavy blanket he can’t shrug off. Jack can see it in their eyes, the blame, read it in the way they skirt around him like he might lash out. As if he  _could_ lash out.

_And whose fault was that?_

It eats at him.

A few days pass.

They're no closer to finding Michael and he's no closer to feeling strong. Whole.  _Useful._

Sam tries to talk to him. Tell him it isn't his fault, that no one blames him, he couldn't have known. But Jack feels the emptiness in those words. If he'd only opened his eyes a bit more, listened to what Sam and Castiel and Dean had been trying to show him. Instead, he'd allowed his blind curiosity and the idea of becoming his own man to overshadow anything else and for that, they were here.

Jack knows he shouldn't be creeping around the halls at night, not with four extra hunters from Apocalypse world around. 

They're all a bit too trigger happy with the destroyer of their world on the loose, no matter how weak Jack might have made him. 

He does it anyway, the sneaking. He's still light on his feet and always a bit slow coming around corners. It’s not something he does with full intention. Midnight is closing in around him and without his grace, he feels exhaustion dragging him down with each minute ticking by.

"...just saying we should keep him on the bench for a while."

Jack's hearing is still perfectly intact and the bunker echoes in certain places more than others. He picks up Sam's tone and instantly freezes in place, back against the brick wall off the side of the kitchen door. It's not polite to eavesdrop, he knows, and just doing it makes his stomach twist all kinds of wrong. But he understands that Sam is talking about him, it's in the way his voice is sad, Jack's heard it before.

"Kid can barely shuffle out of bed most mornings..." That's Dean's agreeing tone, and though it's not nearly as malicious as it had been in the first few days Jack had spent in the bunker, the words themselves are strong enough to sting. They’re true no matter how much Jack doesn't actually need to hear them. He feels weary down to his bones, his grace recharging at less than a snail's pace. Castiel had suggested it was due to his human half and Jack was lucky in the first place it could recharge at all.

Jack's lucky, period, to have any left after Lucifer had drained him near to empty.

He’s still not sure if it’s a mercy or a curse. So far from strong but the light of power still in sight.

"It might be for the best."

Jack feels his chest constrict. It's Castiel now, throwing in his own appeal to keep him on the sidelines. He knows why they're doing it. Logically it makes sense, the more he rests the more grace he can recharge, but the fact that none of them think he could be helpful, aren't even suggesting it? That cuts deeply into already festering wounds.

He's hurt people. He's the cause of this mess. Jack  _knows_ he doesn't deserve to help. Not when he keeps taking the wrong path time and time again. Stumbling around like a child desperately grasping for a hand to hold.

It’s the feeling that guides his next thought. His next choice.

He slips back to his room through the eerie silence of the bunker.

When Sam wakes the next morning and knocks on Jack's door there's no response.

Something in him goes cold. Years of being a hunter has instilled him with gut instincts better than most. He only waits a few seconds before pushing his way into the room.

It's empty.

The bed is made, the dresser drawers slightly askew and the backpack normally on Jack's desk chair, gone. 

His cellphone is on the bed next to his laptop.

There's no note but Sam doesn't need one in order to understand what he's seeing.

If he were to look into Jack’s drawers he’s sure they’d be empty.

Jack is gone.

**_..._ **

That same night, at the exact time a Nephilim fills his backpack with clothing and the secret stash of chocolate bars Mary had given him, a girl paces back and forth in her bedroom. Her ratty sneakers catch the edge of a threadbare carpet again and again as she chews her thumbnail. Her curled fist stings, knuckles still scrapped raw and jagged. She hears a bottle clink loudly in the living room and her stomach gives another heaving lurch.

If she had anything left to throw up at this point she might.

Instead, she focuses on trying to breathe, counting down from five and exhaling slow around her clenched teeth. Her eyes dart from the door to the duffle bag she's got on her bed, shoved full of everything she could think of fitting plus some more.

It's been ready to go for what feels like months.

Tonight had been the last straw though.

She can still feel the crack of bone under her fist and shudders hard, staggering to a jolted stop. She's lost count of her breathing and it's a whirlwind panic in her chest that makes her squeeze her eyes shut hard and try again. Time slips away from her dragging past like then rushing forward.

The bottle  _thunks_ this time, she can hear the floorboards creak past her door and knows he's moved from the living room to his own space. By the heavy shuffle in his step, it's clear to her that most of the cheap whiskey is gone and he'll be out within the next ten minutes.

She stands, immobile for twenty. Until she's sure. Until she's  _positive_ he won't come out until dawn is already long gone and Saturday is half over.

She takes the bag off her bed and shoulders it. The weight is enough to make her rethink trying to take everything in one trip. Her hand is trembling already though. It’s on her doorknob and any more back and forth might make her change her mind. She needs to streamline out of the house and not go back in.

It'll be too easy to stay. Too safe in the life she’s so used to living. There’s a sickening comfort in routine. No matter how bad that routine is.

She's halfway through the living room, moving at the slowest pace she can, hardly letting a sound slip through her lips out of fear alone. She can't explain herself if she's caught now. The bag and the way she’s sneaking around are too clear of signs to make into anything else.

Her eyes slide to the drawer next to her dads reclining chair. The one that never stays locked even though it really should.

Her fingers, still shaking from the moment she'd pushed her door open with stilted breath, reach now for the latch, and careful to avoid its tell-tale squeak, eases it open. To anyone else, it would look forgettable save for the little bible and papers shoved to the very front of it. She knows better.

Cautiously she slides her hands all the way to the back until the tips of her fingers meet cold metal. Her arm jerks back a little on instinct and there's a dull thump, likely only loud enough for her to hear. Still, she pauses and counts to ten before continuing. She grabs the thing by the muzzle and eases it out from behind the random litter in the drawer. It's a small caliber revolver, surprisingly clean for how long it's sat collecting dust. She only hesitates for a second before checking that the safety is on and shoves it in her jacket pocket. She goes back to the drawer and comes away with a half-full box of bullets. They make too much noise for her liking but she puts them in her pocket as well.

A gun is useless to her if all she can do is brandish it.

Once the drawer is put back in order and slipped shut she makes her way to the front door.

Her hands are on her car keys. It's the last step before stepping outside. It's also the hardest.

She does it anyway, slow as she's been since she left her bedroom, and when she met with cooling summer air she exhales low and long for the first time in an hour. It feels like escaping. Like freedom, the way the breeze drifts over her as soft as a whisper. Beckoning her away.

Once shes inside her car, a beater really but the most trusted companion she's had in years, she doesn't care about the noise of the driver door slamming or the engine turning over. She has no destination in mind and even if her father woke he'd never catch her.

She hits the gas and makes the vow to drive forward until the house, the town, the  _state_ is long past her rearview and she can't keep her eyes open any longer.

At the same time the following morning, when Sam Winchester swings his way into Jack's room Riley crosses state lines into Kansas, back roads stretching empty for miles.

She's still buzzing with the excitement and fear even after hours have passed. It’s ten in the morning and the only sleeps she’s gotten since she tore out of her parking space is a two-hour cat nap at the last rest area she’d passed that didn’t scream “you will be serial murdered if you stop here.”

Then she sees in the distance a person on the side of the road, staggering slowly, one step after another, head bent, backpack swinging dangerously low on one shoulder as they kick up dust. Worry worms it's way into Riley's throat and she can't help but slow down to asses the situation better.

It's a guy... That's all she can really make out from the back of his head and his silhouette as she gets closer. She slows further. Given by the uneven shuffle of his steps and the way he sways with each one, Riley guesses he's been walking for a while, the bottom of his jeans caked with dirt from the ditch he’s clearly been stumbling through.

It's a bad idea. A terribly stupid one really.

But there's something about the set defeat in the stranger's shoulders that has her driving forward and then cutting ten feet ahead of his current path. She takes a breath and looks at the glove compartment where she's stored the revolver.

If he ends up causing her trouble she can always defend herself... she wouldn't even need the gun to do it. It could scare him off without the need for getting violent though.

Already she's thinking about peeling away, slamming the gas and just forgetting the twist of concern in her stomach.

It's too late though, she can hear his steps crunching in the gravel and dried mud as he gets closer. He's walking slower too, likely curious as to what she's doing. Riley wets her lips when the sound of approaching footsteps stop right next to the passenger window which is lowered like her own. She turns to look.

Blue eyes, wide, curious and obviously tired meet her gaze. Her hands clench the steering wheel. She doesn't know why she's so caught off guard, perhaps it’s because of his clear youth or the way he doesn’t shy away from the eye contact, but the longer they both stay where they are, still as statues and staring at one another, the more unnerved she gets.

Riley clears her throat awkwardly and looks anywhere that isn’t the boys face.

"Do you... need a ride?" Her words are hesitant to even her own ears, like she's unsure if she's even really offering. Why the hell is she offering? Riley knows the answer without even voicing the question out loud to herself. She’s always been too kind, too concerned for others, to  _soft_.

The boy doesn't answer for a long while and Riley turns back to look at his face again because the silence is actually killing her. His expression is pinched together like he's having to think very hard about the question.

"I... don't know."

It's not at all what Riley is expecting and her brow raises by itself, skepticism shrouding her nerves like a protective covering.

"You don't know?" It was a yes or no question. At least she'd thought it was. The boy's eyes meet hers again and it's just as strangely intense as before. There's something sad though, something deeper than his surface exhaustion and confusion.

"I don't..." he blinks, eyes sliding again, searching for words, "I don't have a destination so I do not know if I need a ride."

Riley doesn't know how to respond to that. Logically it makes sense but it's not something someone normal would respond with. There's something off about the stranger.

It sets Riley's teeth on edge. But then blue meets brown again and there's a vulnerability there that she's unused to seeing. She's going to regret this... she knows she will. She's trading in a bucket of problems for one more. She breaths and sends out a quick prayer to a god she doesn't know if she actually believes in that this guy isn't a really convincing killer.

"Then, would you like a ride? I'll take you as far as this tank of gas gets me." She indicates to the needle though she’s sure he can’t see that it’s closing in on three-fourths of the way full. Not from his vantage point at least.

A smile slips its way onto the boy's lips, changing his expression from worry into something almost blindingly bright, like curtains blocking the sun have been pulled away. It would be more disarming if the distant sadness wasn't still so plain in his eyes. It’s closer to regret. He’s wearing it like a beacon, too noticable for Riley to ignore.

"That would be wonderful."

It's so genuine almost tinged with a strange naivety that again, Riley feels wrong-footed by it all.

She's offered though, and standing on principles she's been ingrained with she can't take it back now. Not without good enough reason, and a smile isn’t reason enough.

"Right, okay." She unlocks the door and watches with hesitance as the boy slips his bag from his shoulder and slides into the passenger seat after she tosses her jacket into the back. He tucks his backpack between his legs and is careful with the door as he closes it, treating Riley's junker like it isn't twenty years old and falling apart. He clicks his seat belt on and smooths his hands down his thighs, assessing the near disintegrating interior of the vehicle with that same easy smile.

When his eyes finally land on Riley he holds out a hand, the motion done in steps instead of fluidly.

"I'm Jack."

Riley manages to force a hand away from her wheel and shakes the offered one quickly in return before letting go.

"Riley."

With a quick look between Jack and the road, then again to make sure he's done nothing suspicious in the last half a second her eyes had left him, she takes her foot off the break and eases her way back on to the road.

**Author's Note:**

> If you like this fic please leave kudos and comments! They absolutely make my day and I'd love to know what you think!
> 
> I'll try to have chapters out every other week as school starting back up for me this week. I do have them all planned out ahead of time, however, so that should help!
> 
> Come check me out at film-in-my-soul on tumblr!


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